Re: Round Robin

The Oxford English Dictionary gives, first,
quotations illustrating an obsolete sense without defining that sense:
1546
COVERDALE . . . Certayne fonde talkers . . . applye to this mooste holye sacramente,
names of despitte and reproche, as to call it Jake in the boxe, and round roben,
and such other not onely fond but also blasphemouse names.
1555 RIDLEY . .
. There were at Paules . . . fixed railing bils aginst the Sacrament, terming
it Jack of ye boxe, the sacrament of the halter, round Robin, with lyke unseemly
termes.

I don't know what sacrament these authors were talking about. Then the
OED has a second obsolete sense, defined as "Applied to persons." A representative
quotation:
1671 HACKET These Wat Tylers and Round-Robins being driven or persuaded
out of Whitehall.

Third sense: defined as "a document (esp. one embodying a
complaint, remonstrance, or request) having the names of the subscribers arranged
in a circle so as to disguise the order in which they have signed. Originally
used by sailors, and frequently referred to as a nautical term."
1731 GENTL.
MAG. . . . The Method used by Sailors when they mutiny, by signing their names
in an orbicular manner, which they call a round Robin.
[etc.]